


Still Here

by Waffle-o (XylB)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, FAHC, GTA Universe, Gen, implied major character death, some depictions of injury but not terribly graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XylB/pseuds/Waffle-o
Summary: If someone screams and no one's around to hear it, did they make a sound?(Title from "Still Here" by Digital Daggers.)





	Still Here

_You haven’t talked to me in a week – Jeremy, fuck, are you okay?_

_Jeremy?_

_I know you can hear me, Jeremy_ -

“Go away!” Jeremy roars, clapping his hands over his ears and turning away from the flicker, squeezing his eyes shut even as a cold draft drifts over him.

_Jeremy, please_

“ _Go away_ ,” Jeremy begs. Freezing fingers brush over his hand and he abruptly stumbles backwards – he knocks against the desk and collapses to the ground, sinking to slump against the wood and bury his face in his knees so he doesn’t have to see the ghastly paint, the marred mirage of blood and broken bones and burnt-black skin.

He can still smell the melting leather.

_Jeremy, look at me_

Jeremy did all his looking. He did the looking on the street, in the back of the hijacked ambulance, when monitors were going flatline and the de-fib was still shocking away, when they closed his eyes and zipped the body bag – _he did his fucking looking_.

_Please, Jer, I think – I think we can -_

“Just leave me alone,” Jeremy whispers, but the hands over his ears don’t help and no amount of clothing can stop the touch of freezing hands, the chilling breeze that sweeps over him with all the softness of a sigh and just as heartbreaking.

_I think there’s more to it, Jer_

“Just leave me the fuck alone!” Jeremy shouts. “Why don’t you bother one of the others, why don’t you haunt _them_?!” He snaps his head up to glare, breathing heavily if only to stop the lump in his throat getting any worse.

Ryan floats backwards sheepishly, tangling a finger in a scrap of his leather jacket.

“What’s so fucking special about me?” Jeremy snaps, aware that there’s tears in the corner of his eyes and denying it. “I can’t help you, Ryan, fucking _no one_ can! Go to someone else.”

“...I can’t,” Ryan says quietly.

“What the _fuck_ does that mean?” Jeremy hisses – Ryan retreats into the shadows of the room, his smeared face paint faded into greyscale. It’s more haunting, somehow, the skull design half-smudged and dragged down one side of his face but far too close to what he must be by now that it makes Jeremy’s throat close up.

“What does that mean, Ryan?” He asks, softer. Ryan looks away.

“The others can’t see me,” he admits. “They can’t – I tried, Jeremy, and they can’t - ” He breaks to inhale shakily, stepping back further into the shadows.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, tugging his ruined jacket around himself.

Jeremy can’t muster up the energy to speak. To move. Just sits there and stares at Ryan and fights down the urge to cry.

“I’m crazy,” he whispers. “I’m – you’re not real, are you?”

Ryan’s head snaps up at that, panic widening his eyes and opening his mouth and -

“You’re not fucking real,” Jeremy breathes, running a hand over his head.

“I _am_ ,” Ryan says. “I – no, Jeremy, I _am_ , I’m - ”

“Fuck,” Jeremy whispers. He presses a hand to his face and laughs a little, looking away from Ryan. “ _Fuck_. I’m actually fuckin’ losing it. I know I always joked about it but - ”

“No, no, wait, please, _please_ , Jeremy, I swear - ” But Ryan’s pleas go untouched.

Jeremy swallows thickly and pushes himself up to stand, bracing himself on the desk and rubbing his eyes, dragging a hand over his mouth.

“I’m going to – go now,” he says. “I’m going to leave this – empty room and go grab a drink. And come home to my empty bedroom - ”

“ _Jeremy_ \- ”

“And no fuckin’ - hallucination is going to stop me.”

“I’m real, I swear it, I’m _real_ ,” Ryan pleads, and now there’s tear tracks marring the paint as well, muddy trails down his cheeks.

Jeremy decides to give him one last chance.

“Prove it,” he says, fixing Ryan with a look.

Ryan looks around helplessly for a moment before urgently zooming forward to knock something over on the desk – except his broken hand goes right through it. He furrows his brow and tries again, waves at everything until he’s angrily swiping at papers and memorabilia that don’t even shift with the cold breeze Jeremy can feel. With each furious attempt, Jeremy can hear the hitch of a sob, ignores the heartbreaking sound of it and calmly turns away to walk right through Ryan and to the door.

It doesn’t even raise goosebumps on his arms.

“Jeremy, wait, please, _please_ ,” Ryan begs hoarsely, but Jeremy doesn’t turn around.

“You’re going to get a drink, Dooley,” he says to himself, hand on the doorknob. “And stop talking to yourself.”

And he steps out.

“Jere - ” The shout is cut off with the slam of the door, locked with a harsh flick of his fingers and Jeremy doesn’t hesitate before storming down the hallway, picking up his jacket and his keys and slapping off the lights before he leaves.

Seconds later, in the pitch-black darkness and in the stock-still silence, a lamp falls off Jeremy’s desk.


End file.
